“Populist" Transformations and the Crisis of Governance in Africa From State Building to the Death of Politics | [Pakistan Journal of Life and Social Sciences • 2025]

Author(s):

1. Hamdy A. Hassan: Zayed University, Dubai

Abstract:

The term ‘populism’ was widely used in Latin America and contested in other parts of the world. However, it was hardly supported in the literature on African politics after independence. Following the realization of Kwame Nkrumah's political kingdom, with the independence of African countries in the sixties, mobilization of the masses was no longer a top priority on the agenda of the ruling national elites. Indeed, these masses have cut off their ties or reduced them to the organs of the post-independence tyrannical state. Thus, the people in many countries have become marginalized in the public space. The situation did not differ under the policies of dominant one-party systems, which restricted the concept of competitive participation. However, post-colonial traditions have witnessed the emergence of exceptional contexts that have allowed populist leaders to rise, such as Jerry Rawlings in Ghana and Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso. Some African leaders have adopted a racial demagoguery discourse, which motivated hate for the ethnically and culturally different ethos, as in the case of Idi Amin in Uganda when he expelled Asians from his country in 1972 or Robert Mugabe's land policies in Zimbabwe. However, the framework used to analyze such a pattern of leadership falls under the concepts of Personal rule, Neo-Patrimonialism, neo-autocracy, and so on. This study seeks to focus on the concept of "populism" in its African context and its various transformations, from its employment as an ideology of liberation and emancipation from slavery and colonialism as a program for socialist development to its coming back under the politics of party competition as an electoral strategy. Perhaps this raises some central questions, such as the explanatory factors of the popular culture of populism in African political and social thought after independence. As well as the implications of African neo-populist patterns and patterns on democratization and development strategies in Africa.

Page(s): 7060-7069

DOI: https://doi.org/10.57239/PJLSS-2025-23.1.00550

Published: Journal: Pakistan Journal of Life and Social Sciences, Volume: 23, Issue: 1, Year: 2025

Keywords:

Populism Africa Populist Leaders Electoral Populism Governance

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